Silken Sands
by Satiah
Summary: The desert's warning went unheeded. For what could a mere spit of sand do to a great prince of darkness? But now he regrets his ignorance because there was nothing he could do to save those closest to him. Ancient Egypt AU.


Yu-Gi-Oh! © Kazuki Takahashi

... ... ...

A lone torch wavered and died, issuing curling tendrils of smoke into a darkened stone hallway. The lone occupant glanced at it briefly, piercing eyes well-adapted to probing the darkness. His heightened senses told him no living thing breathed there, so he resumed his quiet but urgent passage, thankful for the cover of added shadows. It was only a matter of time before he had to leave their safety, he knew, and chance his unearthly body to the mercy of the moonlight. But as for now, his passage was protected, wrapped in the ever-welcoming arms of night.

... ... ...

With a sigh, a tired pharaoh fell into the silken embrace of his waiting bed. The curtains were drawn tightly against the light of the full moon, but sleep proved elusive. He sighed again and flopped over, burying his face beneath soft pillows. His mind raced. His body ached. He attempted to find a peaceful escape, but the burdens of the day continued to haunt him, flickering through his mind with vibrant life. He grumbled his frustration.

In due time, a soft breeze rose from the west, pulling at his curtains, bringing into the palace walls the soft scents of the desert.

It wasn't long before restlessness succumbed to slumber.

... ... ...

Quickly sidestepping the spilled gold of a burning candle, Seth hissed in annoyance as his other foot bathed itself in the glow of an adjacent window. He felt his skin burn beneath his heavy cloak and sandals, felt the heat of her steel blade daggers bite deep into his flesh. Intense, irritated eyes glowered at the offending portal. It made no sense to him why the damned things were left uncovered on evenings when the moon was so luminous.

Ascending gracefully the last three steps at the otherwise vacant hall's end, he paused for only a moment before slipping insubstantially, as if made of wispy smoke, between heavily adorned double doors guarding the king's chamber. A careful glance inside revealed heavy velvet drapery had already been secured, barring the harsh light from always-open windows. The rich smell of the pharaoh's favorite wine permeated the air, uncovered and forgotten, mingling with the spicy aroma of his perfumes. (He claimed he slept better when the air was thick with the scents of Egypt.)

Pulling aside the filmy curtains surrounding the king's four-poster bed, blue eyes quietly searched for the slumbering lump among the heaps of blankets and pillows. Once found, he reached out with pale, slender fingers, softly flicking the pharaoh's nose. An unintelligible grumble greeted him.

"You're here," the king said, voice and eyes heavy with sleep.

"Of course." A near-flippant reply.

"I thought you wouldn't come this night."

"Have I ever not come?"

_"Yes."_

The visitor's scoffing reply was abruptly silenced, cut off by the touch of a warm hand upon his arm. The king pulled himself from the covers, red eyes breathing luminescence all their own.

Together, the cousins slipped from the palace compound and disappeared into the night. The desert-siren called to their souls.

_"If you love me, you'll never be free."_

... ... ...

His Highness had warned him. That much could not be denied. But, to give in to the calling, to find himself lost in such a vast, open wilderness, was the only thing Seth truly lived for. The only thing he craved. The only moment where the world slipped away and the rawness of Life itself remained, clothed in starlight and sand.

He could bathe in no other light; and so it was this which he hungered for. Diffused among the desert sand and dark-winged winds, not even the moon's rays could burn him here.

But still, Atem's quiet voice repeated the desert's warning, as if it were a ritual needing to be said. (Indeed, in some ways it was.) Seth rolled his eyes and continued, cresting the dunes without slowing for his mortal companion.

Seth was an arcane creature of the dark. Civilizations rose and passed before his eyes like smoke in an autumn breeze. Just what was it that His Royal Highness thought would happen to such a creature? One small spit of sand couldn't possibly hinder the unfathomable magnitude of Seth's unearthly, vampiric powers. He quickly dismissed Atem's silly concerns that _caution should be taken: the stars seemed unnaturally distant and unyielding_.

Seth rolled his eyes. Atem spoke too many words with too little meaning. So he reached into the shadows and drew them about himself, cloaking his body in shrouds upon shrouds of breathing, writhing black. The stars looked just fine to him. With a quiet chuckle he leaned down to whisper into the king's ear. "Just try to stop me."

Atem frowned, knowing that even in such darkness Seth would still be able to see it.

... ... ...

In the morning, Atem woke as he always did, wrapped tightly in the comforting arms of his richly adorned blankets, his room perfumed with the desert's lingering scent. Seth must have carried him back; he tended to fall asleep long before the vampire grew tired of marveling in the richness of the desert evenings.

Daybreak murdered the undead. The sun's rays pierced through a vampire's otherwise unbreakable defenses, forcing Seth into surrender beneath the desert's protective surface. He sought refuge in the labyrinthine halls and chambers of death scattered throughout the sun-blessed land of Egypt, lying in borrowed tombs of pharaohs who had long since passed through their own hearts' judgments.

With a sigh, the mage-king rose from his bed, slipping golden feet into sandals of elegantly embroidered linen. He wondered, and not for the first time, what life was like on the other side: where immortals like Seth could wander through the trappings and boundaries of time, never burdened with responsibilities, sickness, or the eventual fear of death.

Perhaps he'd remember to ask tonight, while Seth led them deep into the sandy dunes.

... ... ...

Seth returned in his usual manner, after sunlight's last kisses faded away and night's velvety wings embraced the Egyptian homeland below. He shifted through the hallways, melting and swift. He slipped his way into the grander palace chambers, carefully stepping around the moon's pools of silver.

Reaching the king's bedside, Seth brushed straying gossamer curtains aside with a swipe of annoyance, removing the filmy obstacles from his path. He knelt down low and scooped the hidden body out from beneath a bundle of blankets. The king stirred unhappily, preferring to remain asleep, but as always his cousin was persistent, distracted, and irritable until things went exactly his way. Traversing the shifting sands, they would reach that place where no man had marred the surface with buildings or temples, where wide, open space allowed Seth's powers to grow and flourish, where shadows could be summoned, and only then and there could the vampire drink the fullness of what it meant to be alive.

Of course, Atem's spells had to be set first. Vampires couldn't learn to wield Shadow Magic of their own unless they first contracted with a human sorcerer.

But, as always, Atem ignored Seth's glaring impatience until he had reminded him of that always irritating promise, placed upon his lips by the mighty desert herself:

_"If you love me, you'll never be free."_

As usual, it was dismissed.

... ... ...

Years later, those words would echo within Seth like a never ending reverberation, like the toll of the young king's death-bell: deep, hollow, and cold. Years later, as he held onto snow-white lilies with loose fingers beside a marbled headstone, would he begin to understand the implications beneath a few unheeded words. Years later, he would finally see how clearly the desert's calling had ensnared him, how she had bound such a proud, powerful creature. His weaknesses had been exploited so completely through this buried mortal corpse—such trickery!

Atem had known. He _must_ have known. He'd always repeated the warnings.

Seth hadn't wanted to understand. Never wanted to leave, never dreamt of letting go, he'd clung to the surface world so _desperately_. His cousin had become the personification of his freedom, and never before had Seth felt as alive as when he was surrounded by the silence of the desert, a place where Atem's own magics could resonate with that of the undead's, filling the cold with warmth and bringing light to night-blind blue eyes.

But the same desert which breathed such breath into _him_ had stolen it away from his cousin, his only true companion in a life half-lived.

He hadn't been able to look past his own tangled desires in time to save himself from this despair, this loneliness, this loss of freedom. Seth's greatest longings had been woven against him until it was _he_ who had wrapped _himself_ in this inescapable, detestable trap, and now that he knew what it felt like to _live,_ he realized he hadn't lived at all.

Living was loving. And without the presence of those he loved, he had nothing left to live for.

The black dawn of understanding bloomed within an undead heart, and death-knolls resounded in the silence left behind. Relentless sands were shifting, changing, clawing and crawling forward to bury his stubborn pride. For indeed, the desert's whispered warnings had come true, and now an embalmed mortal's short-lived promise would forever rot a vampire's eternal curse.


End file.
